Great Minds
by Sleepless Poet
Summary: Sentimentality transcends reason.
1. Precipitation

**Author's Note: After playing through Omega Ruby, I really couldn't keep myself from shipping Maxie and Courtney. They just work so well (and by that, I mean adorably) together. So, of course, I had to write a fanfiction. This "novel" will just be a collection of one-shots (ranging from about 3,000 to 7,000 words). Some will be set after Omega Ruby and the Delta episode, some during. There isn't really a timeline to this, just whatever comes up in my brain at the time. I'll try to make the context as clear as possible when necessary. Without further rambling from me, enjoy, and, as always, comments and reviews are more than welcome. Ah, and by the way, credit for the image (and inspiration for this chapter) goes to hopebiscuit from tumblr.**

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><p>Precipitation<p>

_Project Azoth. No. . . Weather Institute. No. . . Rolle's Theorem. No, dammit, stay focused. . . There is something you need to recall. . . _Courtney's eyes scan the spartan room in hopes of an object to trigger her memory. Desk. Coffee mug needs to be cleaned, reports need to be filed, but no, that isn't it. Bookcase. Stack of books to return to Maxie. How long had it been since she borrowed them? Maxie. Leader Maxie.

_No, focus. . ._

Walls. Covered in writing—formulas, equations, snips of proposals. Needs to be cleaned for next project. Later. Now, _now_, she needed to remember. Nightstand. The red numbers on the alarm clock blur into focus as she stares at them, faintly irritated by the fact that the last digit continually changes before she can remember what it is that it's trying to tell her. 2. 6. 9. When it clicks over to 2:00, the number and the tiny A.M. symbol blinking beside it morph into meaning in her mind. Sleep. That is what she has forgotten. . .

Rubbing her eyes, she tugs her Magma jacket over her head but leaves on the fireproof sweater. Warm, soft, it will suffice for pajamas. Something tells her not to sleep in shorts and a t-shirt like she usually does, because it's December, because it's cold. Courtney leaves her desk and systematically checks the house—doors and windows locked, alarm system activated—before switching off all the lights. Having completed her nightly ritual plunge into darkness, she makes her way back to her bedroom (She does not stub her toe in the dark. With the layout of her home etched into memory, she knows the way.) and climbs into bed. The covers come up around her neck and her arms go around herself. She sighs. Her mind does not want to sleep, but she cannot ignore her body. How troublesome. She tries to put herself to sleep by calculating Riemann sums. It doesn't work. She has done it too many times before, and her mind will no longer be fooled. Sifting through as many distractions as she can, she finally settles on balancing redox reactions. Coefficients and chemical symbols float around in the nebulous swirl of her mind as she finally drifts into sleep.

It doesn't last long.

A shrill noise shreds through the calming darkness and rips her from her respite. Groaning, her tiny hands squeeze the blankets on the bed with a death grip and yank them up over her head, insulating her from the world. "_Fermez votre bouche. ._ ." She mumbles to no one in particular, still too asleep to realize or care that she is grumbling at an audio disturbance, not a human. Off to her right, there is another beep, and, turning toward it, she mumbles louder, "_Fermez votre bouche. . ._"

The audio disturbance transforms from a series of blips and trills into a voice. Deep, serious, but slightly amused. "I believe you are speaking in the wrong language, Courtney."

Yawning, she gropes about the nightstand, searching for the source of the sound. In her state of sleep, she has not yet pinpointed the voice to a definite human or meaning, and so it remains a disembodied audio disturbance that she wishes would shut up.

"_Soptar an ifreann suas. . ._"

The voice exhales a laugh through the nose. A familiar sound, bringing the voice closer to the forefront of her memory, but still it remains blurry. _I should. . . end the call_, she thinks, once it becomes clear to her that that is where the sound emanates from.

"Incorrect, again," it says. "In fact, that was further from English than the first."

"Irish. . ." Courtney mumbles, most of her words obscured by the blankets covering her mouth.

"Yes, I know," it replies, quite patiently.

"In. . . English," she says, pausing for a long moment, during which she nearly falls back into sleep, "I want you to. . . quiet." _You forgot a verb. . . somewhere in there._

Courtney does not know exactly why, but she can say with one hundred percent certainty that the voice on the other end of the line has just rolled its eyes.

"Are you fully cognizant of whom you are speaking to?"

"No. . . But I am perfectly aware. . . that it disturbs my sleep."

"Courtney, it is Maxie."

That single name brings Courtney's brain into a state of hyper awareness, jolting her from foggy sleep to full consciousness within nanoseconds. "L-leader Maxie!" She stammers as she sits up in bed and holds the phone to her ear. She wants nothing more than to sink back into the darkness of sleep and forget this embarrassment. "I apologize for my lapse in professionalism."

"Seeing as I have woken you quite early, I cannot hold you at fault." Her eyes glance at the clock as if to verify his words. Indeed, it is early, 3:37 in the morning, to be precise. _Less than an hour of sleep. . . I will need several cups of coffee today._

"The purpose?" She says, putting him on speaker as she slips out of bed, shivering, and makes her way into the kitchen. After she puts water on to boil, she calculates how long it will take to do so, in an attempt to dissipate her lingering abashment.

"I need you to come in early today," he says. "Potentially crucial information has come to light, and to delay a decision would mean losing an opportunity."

"Very well." She covers her mouth to hide a yawn from the man. If he can function optimally without sleep, then so can she. "I will come as soon as possible."

"Thank you." The words sound genuine. She smiles. "It is raining rather heavily today, so do bring an umbrella."

Blood rushes to the admin's face. "Thank. . . you for the warning."

The call clicks off, and she finds herself missing the audio disturbance. She goes through her morning routine while the water boils, albeit she is moving more slowly than usual. _Tablet. Reports. Maxie's books._ She checks them off her mental list as she shoves them haphazardly into her bag. _Brush teeth. Comb hair. Make-up? No time. Uniform. Where are my socks?_ They are downstairs in the library, where she kicked them off the night before. The water in the kettle boils, and the hissing sound startles her out of her train of thought. She runs into the kitchen and makes a quick cup of tea—an effort to be healthy, and probably the only one she will make today—pouring it into her Magma thermos. _Anything forgotten?_ A glance at her watch tells her that there is no time to ascertain that. Activating the alarm and locking the door behind her, she steps out into the rain and remembers what she has forgotten.

"Damn. . ."

Too late now. Flipping up her hood to ward off some of the wet and cold, she starts her walk to work with her thermos clasped tightly in her hands to help her keep warm. Hardly five minutes have passed, but her clothes are already soaked through, and her hair is plastered to her forehead. _Yuck. . ._

"I should scold you," a voice speaks up behind her, "but the probability of this situation occurring is amusingly close to one."

His voice freezes her all over, making her colder than even what the elements have wrought. Trying to hide her nightmarish hair for as long as possible, she doesn't turn around while she waits for him to catch up. His boots splash in the puddles already beginning to pool on the sidewalks. When he stops at her side, holding his red umbrella out expectantly, she ducks underneath, and they resume their leisurely pace. Maxie grips the handle in his right hand and carries a black Magma thermos in his left. Steam seeps upward from it, fogging up his glasses. _Adorable_, she thinks, and then blushes. The umbrella is by no means small, but their shoulders brush against each other every 2.8 seconds as they fall into step. The fact that he slows his characteristically long strides for her does not go unnoticed. She keeps her gaze ahead, but observes him from her peripheral vision.

His glasses are always the first thing that strike her about him. Dark, ponderous, wonderfully imposing, they complement his personality well. Fourteen times she has considered redesigning them with a lighter material—they must put a great strain upon his ears, she imagines—but her fear of presenting the gift (for what else could it be called?) always stops her. After the glasses come the eyes. She's fascinated by them, by how cold they are, by how that slate grey color perfectly obscures the machinations that are calculated behind them. No matter the circumstance (and she has seen him in many), they invariably pierce through any target upon which they look, even her, as opaque as everyone else believes her to be. His perspicacity both unnerves and delights her.

That is not to say, however, that her own acuity falls very far behind his. Over the years she has spent with him, she has become quite adept at reading the man. The lines in his face tell her more than a stranger might expect. Right now, they are lax, so sunken into his face that they are barely visible. They disappear entirely when he smiles, but, since that is a rare occasion, she contents herself with his current state of serenity. It is a relief, compared to how she has seen him some days. When the lines in his face are bold, sharp enough to lacerate, she is suddenly more grateful than usual that they are allies.

_Focus. . ._ _before he notices you staring. . . _

Courtney stares at the ocean on the horizon line in the distance, watching words form sentences on the whiteboard of her mind. When they are fully organized, she says them. "You anticipated this situation, yet you neglected to bring a second umbrella?"

"Sharing an umbrella with you was preferable to the inconvenience of carrying another," he says, his eyes momentarily sliding toward her. The attention brings another blush to her cheeks, and she lifts her cups to her lips to hide it, if only slightly.

_How. . . sweet. _

She opens her mouth to respond, but a tiny sneeze obliterates her words and her delicate train of thought. Now that she is no longer observing Maxie, all she can focus on is the stinging cold. "Sorry. . ." She mumbles, sighing quietly as she realizes her tea is anything but warm anymore.

"Hold this," Maxie says.

He stops walking and gives her the umbrella and then, a second later, his thermos. Curious, she watches him remove his overcoat. "Are you. . . warm?"

"Of course not." Taking back the umbrella and thermos, he hands her his coat. "Change once we arrive. Your illness is the last thing we need at the moment."

The jacket rests awkwardly in her arms as she looks from it to him, bewildered. "Logically speaking, I am far more expendable than are you. Therefore, I cannot accept this."

He sighs. "This particular action does not stem from logic, Courtney."

_If not that, then what? _But by the way the lines in his face have tightened, ever so slightly, she senses that such an inquiry is not welcome. "I. . . appreciate it." She wiggles into the overly large coat and exhales in immediate pleasure. Maxie's body heat still permeates the fabric, warming her through to her very core. _Or is it. . . the warmness of the gesture? _Her hands are completely enveloped by the sleeves, and the coat falls just below her knees.

A subdued giggle slips from her lips.

His raised eyebrows signal his interest, and when Courtney does not reply, he says, "What is so amusing?"

"I never noticed. . . how short I am. . . until I dawned your coat."

The Magma thermos comes up to his mouth, but not quite fast enough to conceal the smirk that plays about his lips. "Yes," the man muses, "you are rather small."

"You. . . are small, too, when standing next to Tabitha."

He allows her to see his smirk this time. It is a one-sided quirk of the lips, mischievous, impossible to mistake for anything resembling a smile. The devilish expression on the face of the man next to her exhilarates her, but more than that, it brings her. . . joy. _How. . . rare to experience this. I must. . .analyze. _

"That may be true," he says, still with the same look, "but certainly you of all people recognize that what I lack in physical stature is amply compensated for in mental prowess."

It takes her as long as it does to blink to see through him. "I was unaware this was a competition. . . However, it must be, as you seem to be preening for war."

"What on earth gave you that notion?" Maybe she is imagining it, but his words seem less carefully contemplated than usual, as though he is flustered.

_This is. . . new._

"Men often feel the need to boast. . . when they perceive their dominance is threatened." She turns to look at him, her face blank. "Do you feel threatened, Maxie?" Internally, she is mortified that she has the audacity to speak those words.

"As if I would indulge in such irrational, petty instincts," he retorts. His hand tightens around the umbrella.

"Just a moment ago. . . you yourself admitted to acting out of accordance with reason," she points out. _How far. . . will I take this? This choice is illogical, and dangerous. So why? I must know. . . _

"Sentimentality is the only exception to rationality I will make, and, even that, infrequently." Turning from jesting to serious, his tone places a finality on this train of conversation.

Courtney smiles. She has what she wants from him, an answer to her unvoiced question from earlier. "So you. . .gave me your coat because you care."

The admin's smile grows when she hears him mutter, "Deucedly manipulative woman," under his breath. To her, he says, "Yes, I suppose I must admit you have emerged victorious in this little battle." His eyes brighten, as they always do when he faces a challenge, as he adds, "Now that I am aware of your unscrupulous tactics, don't expect another such triumph, Courtney."

"We'll see," she says, pulling his coat closer to her body as a particularly harsh gale blows by. "After all. . . you did not promote me for my outstanding morals."

"Chess." The word surprises her, and she looks up at him. "Play with me, one day."

"I acquiesce. . . So long as there is the promise of a raise upon my victory."

"Amusing." His voice betrays the fact that he truly finds it so.

They drift into silence as Courtney focuses on internalizing the man's uncharacteristically light behavior this morning. _He almost seems. . . happy. Why? Because of me? No. . . 83% chance that it is because of work. No, increase that to 91%, as he did mention new information had come to light. That is why I am not asleep, and why we are walking together. His pleasure has simply bled over into his relation with me. This is slightly saddening, but acceptable. As long as he is happy. . . I am happy. _

She yawns as they approach the Magma HQ, the very thought of working this early in the morning making her tired. Maxie holds the door open for her and follows behind. The bright lights make her squint, but she is simply thankful for the warmth and dryness of the indoors.

"I will expect you in my office once you are sufficiently dry."

With that, they part ways, and on her way to the restroom, clutching an armful of spare clothes, she runs into Tabitha. Himself carrying a large stack of folders, the man appears to be in a hurry, yet he still stops to speak—tease, rather.

"You're exceptionally early this morning. And wearing Leader Maxie's overcoat," he comments, grinning mercilessly.

"I was caught in the rain. Nothing unusual." She shifts the clothes in her arm as though to try to hide the offending object.

"Define unusual." Those eerie red eyes bore into her, searching, probing. They, too, are insightful, but no other gaze can unnerve her quite as well as does Maxie's.

"Anything within the parameters of your perverse thoughts. Is this conversation terminated?"

"No," he says, ushering her into his own office and shutting the door behind them. "Did you kiss him?"

"No."

"Did _he_ kiss you?"

"Negative."

"Was there any physical contact?"

Reluctantly, she admits, "We brushed shoulders."

"Excellent," he smiles.

Courtney resists the impulse to roll her eyes. "Why are you more irrational about this matter than am I?"

"Because, as your confident and friend, it is my duty to be excited for you, especially when you yourself appear to have not even a flutter of romantic sensibility."

She glares at the man, though its effects are largely negated by the blush burning on her cheeks. "I have expressed romantic interest in him, is that not enough?"

He sighs. "Seeing as you both are woefully unemotional creatures, I suppose that that will have to suffice." Setting down his stack of papers on his desk, he says, "Now, I have work to do, as do you, so we will resume this conversation over lunch. Same venue, at 2:30. Acceptable?"

"As if I have much of an option," she retorts, though they both know the statement is fond.

"Ah, I do love your indifferent acceptance of reality," he sings, and then, with a devious grin, adds, "I'm certain that is what Leader Maxie loves about you as well."

"Tabitha. . . As soon as you 'fall in love,' there will be tenfold retaliation."

She exits his office to the sound of one of his hearty chuckles, and, making her way to the restroom, she shakes her head. After she changes into dry clothes, she lingers in the bathroom, staring at Maxie's coat. Foolish, _childish_, though it is, she does not want to return it. She wore it only a short time, but already she is attached to the memories it carries.

_Sentimentality transcends reason. . ._

_Maxie drinks Rooibos tea. . . _

_He, too, has an ego. . ._

_It is not visible, but benevolence lurks behind those slate eyes. . ._

_These. . . are the things I have learned from today's precipitation. _


	2. Sickness

**Author's Note: This chapter is a sort of continuation of the last because I felt that it fit pretty well with it. Like the one before it, it's set after the events of ORAS and the Delta episode. Sorry that there isn't much Maxie in this one. I wanted to explore Courtney's character (more specifically, her fascinating mind) more, so hopefully I have done that in a way that's accurate and not boring. Also, this chapter is pretty much a set-up for what happens in the next one, so there's a lot more of Maxie in that one. Questions, comments, criticism, etc. are always welcome. Enjoy! Oh, and just a heads up: I'll probably update once a week, sometime over the Friday-Sunday time frame.**

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><p>Sickness<p>

_Frontal pressure. . . Nasal congestion. . . Abdominal pain. . . Dry throat. I. . . am ill_. As a disgusting confirmation of this observation, her stomach pulls her to the bathroom toilet just in time to retch. When it's over, she lies there on the red tile floor, curled into a ball, waiting for the nausea to recede. Pathetic little moans bubble up in her throat, and though they repulse her, she can do nothing to quell either the noises or the pain. The cramping becomes tolerable after about fifteen minutes, but, even so, she has to limp back to her bed, using furniture as support. She collapses into the blankets, the prospect of medicine all but forgotten in the consuming fog of her discomfort. No matter how she orients herself, she can't seem to find an acceptable position, and even if she does manage to drift back into an unpleasant sleep, she soon wakes with hot, clammy sweats or cold, violent shivers. _Leader Maxie will be displeased that. . . after all his efforts. . . I have still succumbed to sickness_. Glancing at the clock, she calculates that there is still time for her to make it in to work without being glaringly late. _I must go. . . it would be a dishonor not to. I. . . am not weak._

Courtney reaches for her phone on the nightstand and dials Maxie's desk phone, knowing he has likely been at work for a while by now. He answers on the first ring.

"Dr. Maximilian Asche speaking."

Despite herself—her illness, rather—she smiles at the use of his full name, loving the way it but briefly wrests command of any ear privy to it before it falls into the oblivion of the mind. All, that is, save for hers. She has lost many things, some precious, some superfluous, within that nebula, but not his name, not him. An improbable blip of light on her consciousness that cannot be extinguished—that, she thinks, is what he is to her.

"It is Courtney," she says. "An unanticipated disturbance has occurred. . . Ergo, I will be tardy today."

"I see." The other end of the line is unbearably silent, so much so that she has to breathe away from the phone for fear of him picking up on any irregularities in her respiration. At last, when she begins to wonder whether he suspects her, he speaks. "This disturbance, nothing too debilitating, I trust?"

_Nothing precluding your execution of your duties? _is what she hears. She is unsurprised by his treatment of her, foremost and perhaps only, as a business commodity, but is wounded all the same. "It will not impede my work performance," she responds coolly, even for her.

A sigh issues from his end. "You misconstrue my meaning."

"Do I?" Her reply follows on the heels of his words, threatening to overtake and trample them. "I find it improbable that, given this is a professional correspondence, your words could mean aught else."

"An expression of personal concern, perhaps. Had you considered that eventuality?" His voice is sharp, potent, like the retort of a creature gravely wounded.

"Concern. . ." She tastes the word, analyzing it in its syllables, rhythms, and connotations. _Is this expression. . . similar to the sentimentality. . . of the other day's rain? Why. . . does he have these _concerns_? They are not logically necessary in the formula of employer and employee. . . So, why? Does that imply. . . such a description no longer defines us? If not that relation. . . then what? Or. . . is this all feigned? An attempt at placation. . . so he does not lose my professional loyalty after his previous slight?_

Drawing herself up from the realm of her thoughts, she says, "You. . . feel concern. . . for me?"

"In light of your recent excursion in freezing rain, mild concern for your health is only rational."

She hides a cough in her sleeves. "Your concern is unnecessary. I will arrive on time for this morning's administration conference."

Her shaking fingers end the call, and the last thing she hears is him cursing sharply in German. _Concern. . . Sentimentality. . . both are a lie. An impossible illusion. I never believed in them before. Why should a mere human be able to make me start now?_

But she knows why, before she has even fully formed the thought. Her mind will spare her no hardship, allow her no indulgent fantasies.

To her, Maximilian Asche is more than a mere human. Thoughts, images, vivid _visions_ of him flash through her mind and illuminate the darkness: his smirks, his chuckles, his disappointment, his surprise, his rage.

_Stop it. . ._ She can't think of him right now, for fear of him short-circuiting her logic, her mind, the two things she holds dear. He defies the former and eludes the comprehension of the latter. _Stop!_

Strings of superfluous calculations occupy her attention while she prepares for work, acting more out of mechanical muscle impulses than out of conscious thought. The books she has yet to return to Maxie still lie in her bag, another irritating reminder of him. She takes them out and sets them back on her desk, knowing that she will not return them today, that she will not interact with him anymore than strictly necessary. Not needing a repeat of the other day, she glances out of her bedroom window to check the weather. Sunny. Even so, the umbrella goes into her bag as a contingency. She locks up and is out the door, swallowing a dosage of over-the-counter medication on her way. It's a poor substitute for a doctor's care, but she never cared much for doctors. Anyway, she just needs to make it through today. Tomorrow is her day off.

Once she arrives at the Magma HQ, she sees some of her fellow admins already beginning to slip from their offices into the corridors in anticipation of the biweekly administration meeting. She stops in her own office to store her belongings, and, as she is preparing to leave again, a knock stops her. _Please. . . not Maxie. _

"Identity. . . of whom?" She says.

The words come out awkwardly, not in their proper place, as they always do when she is distressed. Her emotions are a bane, destroying her mind's ability to reason like solvent dissolving solute: by pulling it apart at its very seams. Sometimes, _rarely_, the slow undoing of her mind is pleasurable—a relief, certainly, to be free of all those trillions of buzzing _thoughts_—but mostly she hates the inconvenience of having her mental faculties incapacitated, no matter for how short a time. More than that, though, she sees her brain as a part of her, not just as the biological aspect that keeps her alive, but as the factor that makes her herself and no other. Most people attribute the heart as the root of the human soul, but, for Courtney, everything that matters to her is in the head. _Cephalization. . . _

"Do I even have your attention?" the voice on the other side of the door says, somewhat annoyed, but mostly amused.

"Now. . . you do. Reiterate."

"It's Tabitha. Now, are you going to permit me ingress, or shall we fire up our parle by conversing through a door?"

"My Camerupt will show you fire. . . if you sass me again," she threatens, glowering at him as she allows him inside. "I hope you are not here to continue your streak of juvenile taunting."

"No, actually." He chuckles at both the threat and the sarcasm, but he soon falls silent as he occupies himself with appraising her. His deep red eyes, usually crinkled in mirth, are open now, and they are on her. They dart across her body, cap-a-pie, in cursory assessment, lingering, once they have finished, on her face. Courtney meets them with a steady gaze of her own, daring him to disclose the results of his findings.

"You are ill." He sounds surprised, and, unlike the coarse teasing she expected, he is gentle. "Though, if the bottle of Tylenol that slipped from your bag is any indication, I'm certain you were already aware." He picks up the object in question, tosses it lightly in the air several times, and then sets it down on her desk. "Why have you come today? You of all people should know the irritants of contamination."

Courtney says nothing, busying herself, instead, with gathering up her reports for the conference. The oblivion of her mind does not deign to put forth an answer—or, rather, it does, but not one that she will accept.

"Oh, dear, Liepard have your tongue?" He casually leans against the closed door, folding his arms across his chest, but, in reality, the gesture is anything but. It means she is not leaving until he has an answer.

"There are fifteen minutes remaining until the administration meeting," she says, a rebuttal, a threat of her own. Tabitha will not risk his stellar record, for on it rides his chance for promotion.

He refutes her threat with a smirk. "All contingencies accounted for, it will take approximately 3.4 minutes to commute to the conference room." Focusing his eyes on her, he says, "Your turn."

"I came today. . . because my research is essential to this meeting."

His eyes narrow. "Falsehood. Try again."

"It's not a lie," Courtney says, "it's a half-truth."

A wave of the hand dismisses the argument. "Mere semantics, in which I am presently uninterested. Now, the truth. Would you do the honors, or shall I?"

"I have a headache. . . "She nurses her throbbing migraine with her hands, massaging her temples and wishing that the medication would start to work soon. Kinetics told her otherwise.

"More like heartache," Tabitha chuckles as he unfolds himself and stands to his full height. "You are at work today out of your intense loyalty to Maxie. I suppose I can empathize."

"You think yourself a mind reader? Then grant me a favor. Go analyze Maximilian, because he is the one whose impenetrable, fickle mind is deserving of further scrutiny!"

The stack of papers she is holding slips from her hands and scatters onto the floor in a flurry. She kneels to retrieve them, angrily snatching them up and crinkling them in her tense grasp, and all the while, she refuses to acknowledge Tabitha's presence. _Stupid. . . stupid. . . stupid girl!_ She knows her emotions are—have been—eroding her mind this day, and her slow loss of rationality only further agitates her passion. _Verdammt! _In a fit of rage,she slams the papers onto her desk, some of them spilling over off the sides and falling to the floor again. She leaves them there.

"Courtney. . . "

"What?" She snaps, whirling on him, stalking up to him, snatching him by the collar and jerking his face towards her own contorted visage. "Keep taunting me about Maximilian, come, I beseech you. Would I could give you a knife for these wounds, to make your task even simpler! Let the blood run, for, as a machine, I have no tears!"

_Damn passion. . . damn reason. . . they are both naught but a vile human sickness. _

Tabitha wraps his hands around hers, softly detaching her clenched fingers from his clothing. For a moment, a very brief moment, he pulls her close, wraps her in the warmth of a rare hug. She is too frustrated, too exhausted, to offer any resistance, but neither does she truly want to. Somehow, this contact is a salve to both her inflamed mind and her swollen heart. Wordlessly, he guides her to her desk chair, allowing her to hold to him for support.

"This is not a conversation to be had with me," he says. His voice is neutral, but not apathetic. Full of concern, but not judgment. "You know very well with whom. Now, you will remain here during the administration conference and collect yourself. After its completion, I will return and drive you home."

"Tabitha—"

"I'm afraid I must ignore your protestations in this situation. You are unwell, and it falls to me to care for you."

"You are hardly in a position to shirk your duties," she says, wrapping her arms around herself as a particularly nasty bout of nausea takes over. "Moreover, what excuse will you offer Maxie for your absence, let alone mine?"

"I'll take care of it." His eyes close as he smiles, and then he is gone.

She shrugs out of her Magma jacket, curls it into a ball, and then uses it as a pillow. _Sleep. . . achieve precious stupor. . . _For once, her mind switches off as soon as she lays down. The world, and its pain and troubles, dissolves into grainy opaqueness.

_Why. . . must I be afflicted. . . by this cursed sickness?_

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><p>A gentle tap on her shoulder disturbs her sleep, and Courtney reluctantly allows it to draw her up into consciousness. She watches Tabitha's hazy form glide about her office, gathering her bags and attempting to straighten out the papers she made a mess of earlier that morning.<p>

"Do you feel much improved?" He refuses to let her carry her own bags, so she awkwardly puts on her coat and shoves her hands in the pockets. Chocolate wrappers, strips of paper, a pencil, a small, wrinkled ball of aluminum, two bolts, five nuts, a roll of litmus paper, other, stranger things.

"Slightly. . . The Tylenol has activated, at least." She stops him with a touch on his arm before he makes it to the door. "Where. . . is Maximilian?"

"In a meeting with the heads of the Astrophysics Department," he says, opening the door and waiting for her to lock up. "No need to worry about an incidental run-in."

"I wasn't worried."

"I find that statement hard to believe."

She digs her elbow into his side as they amble out to the parking garage. It is filled with black vans, jeeps, trucks, even a few armored cars, and all have windows as darkly tinted as is legal. They are abundant in their stock but not in the frequency of their use. With Hoenn's temperate climate and the restriction on automobile usage for environmental reasons, they rarely have a need for the cars save for in emergencies. Tabitha seems to think this situation warrants their use, and Courtney is grateful for his judgment, as she is by no means up to walking the twenty minutes to her home in this condition. He selects a car that looks more like a soccer-mom van—save its somber color—than something that would belong to a sleek, high-tech organization such as their own.

"Shall I stop anywhere on our way?" He asks, attempting to draw her attention away from the car window.

"Negative."

She leans her head against the window, and her warm breath fogs the glass. The coolness of the surface does something to relieve the effects of her fever, as well as her temper, too.

"Obviously, you are troubled by more than physical illness. Do you want to discuss it?"

"Not particularly. . ." She directs her gaze toward him for a moment. "Maybe. . . once I have found the words."

"The time is yours," he says, "for I am going nowhere."

"You intend. . . to stay with me today?" Her voice slips into a higher note in her surprise. _Alone. . . I am accustomed. . . to being alone. _"You have no obligation."

He smiles. "I am well aware. However, I took it upon myself to care for you, and I intend to see to it that you are looked after."

She sighs, drumming her fingers on her knees. Normally, she is not one for nervous ticks (in fact, it's the opposite. She can sit motionless for hours, her form without giving no indication of the whirring activity occurring within.), but today has been anything except normal. The deviation from her habits agitates her, shoves her off balance.

"Humans. . . are. . . confusing."

Tabitha's eyes leave the road for a second, searching her face in curiosity. She can tell that by now he knows her idiosyncrasies well enough to understand that she will divulge what she wants when she wants, and any prodding on his part will simply cause her to retreat further into her mind. Thus, she is unworried to leave the silence for as long as it takes her to contemplate exactly how she wants to fill it.

"Calculus, chemistry, biology, politics. . . I comprehend lucidly. Humans. . . evade my knowledge. . . regardless of how much I probe them. What. . . comes so easily to all else. . . is frustratingly impossible. . .for me. I feel. . . like I am constantly. . .on the outside of an impenetrable wall. This sickness. . .eats at me. . . and leaves me. . . lonely."

Once she has broken the silence, the words tumble out, unformed, imperfect, charged with the one thing she thought lost on her: emotion.

"I. . .believed Maximilian understood me. . .but I see now I was wrong. He. . .cannot accept my. . ._defects _any more than can. . . the rest."

At this point, they have arrived at her house, but, other than parking the car, Tabitha makes no indication of going inside. He unbuckles his seatbelt and turns in his seat to face her. "What evidence do you have for this declaration?"

"Three days ago, he said. . . words that I never thought I should hear pass from him. Others, yes, but from him. . . a betrayal." Her tiny hands clench into fists in an effort to steady their trembling. "He said. . . 'You are as beautifully efficient as a machine.'"

That word, the last word, burns her tongue as if it were doused in fire, weighs it down as if it were molded of tungsten. Bile scorches her throat to merely repeat the phrase, but oh, _oh_, the conflagration was a thousand times worse hearing it from his voice, from the man she so loves!

Tabitha says, "I cannot account for his thoughts, naturally, but are you certain you did not misinterpret his meaning?"

"How could I?" The unbidden rage returns, but this time, its potency is sharpened by her returned logicality. "A machine, a _machine!_ What are they but servants? Good for work and nothing more! Unemotional, unloved, _unhuman!_"

"Courtney, I truly believe that perhaps you did not understand him. You have known him as long as I, and we both know he would not intentionally wound you." He reaches for her arm to soothe her, but she will not be soothed. She jerks away, pressing her back against the door until the handle digs into her shoulder.

"No!" Her hands fumble with the lock on the door, trying to pry it open. "All my life I have been told when it comes to man that I do not understand, but no more. I do not understand man, but _neither does man understand me!" _

The latch gives, and before Tabitha can stop her, she throws open the door and clambers out of the car. She ignores his protests and pleas, pausing only long enough to say, "Maximilian has given up on me, and why should I not do the same, in turn, to him?"

"Courtney—"

"Return to work, Tabitha. I need not your _concern_, nor anyone else's!" She slams the door on him, muttering madly to herself as she runs inside her house.

_Leave me. . . to fester. . . in my sickness!_


	3. Epiphany

**Author's Note: I want to apologize for not updating quite on time, but hey, it is the holidays. Hope you enjoy this one, and I really appreciate all of the support for this story that I've been getting!**

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><p>Epiphany<p>

Courtney's illness passes within three days, during all but one of which she goes to work, but her sickness stays with her. It always has. She has not talked to either Tabitha or Maxie outside of professional conversations for an entire business week since that dreadful day, and it is not for lack of trying on their part, to be sure. The advantage is hers because being misunderstood is not without its perks: namely, none can discern, with any sort of consistent accuracy, her thought processes. They know she is avoiding them, but they do not know why, or where she hides.

Over the past week she has developed something of a routine in her evasion, and the plan is so simple that it's complex, or, at the very least, easily overlooked. Avoiding them outside of work is _très facile_. She ignores their calls, texts, and voicemails; she lets them simply stand outside her house, banging on the door, until they frustrate themselves through their own impatience; she does not frequent any of her usual haunts (library, independent research lab, Lilycove University, Mt. Pyre, Lilycove Yoga Center) just in case they plan to ambush her there; she even goes so far as to attempt to disguise herself outside of work, wearing oversized hoodies and baggy pants and mussing her hair so that she looks like an adolescent boy and not a woman.

Avoiding them at work is considerably more difficult, but, for Courtney, that's where the fun comes in. Although she takes it seriously, it's a game to her, a puzzle, an enigma. Her mind delights in the task, but not its cause. Her first and foremost rule is that she can never be alone with either Tabitha or Maxie. All her strategies, then, flow logically from this one condition. The stairs become her preferred mode of vertical travel because one never knows who one will encounter in the enclosed space of an elevator, and, knowing Tabitha and Maxie as she does, she does no doubt that they would readily stop the elevator and trap her there until she talked. As an added precaution, she uses empirical observation to determine the times when the corridors are busiest and emptiest and plans her excursions accordingly. Lunch and breaks are further obstacles, ones that force her to deviate from her usual habits. In both, she uses the laws of probability against her foes, changing her lunch venue daily (and, should it reach that point, she has even planned to weekly change the order in which she visits each) in order to decrease the likelihood that they will find her or stumble upon her accidentally. The approximate ten minute downtime following conferences provides another, admittedly unexpected, issue. It is a window of time during which Tabitha or Maxie could potentially request a private meeting with her, and to preclude this, Courtney makes certain she is talking with one of her coworkers for the entirety of those ten minutes. They are not so juvenile or ill-mannered as to blast their personal qualms to the general staff. That, however, is the only realm off-limits, as she smartly realized early on that not even her own office is safe. During this past week, it has become more of a storage area than a work space since she refuses to be caught alone or unawares in a room with only one means of exit. Most of her time, then, is now spent in the labs, bustling with fellow scientists and abundant in its modes of egress in case of a scientific emergency. By far, though, the most difficult, inconvenient part of avoiding them comes not at work, but directly after it. Most Magma employees, not excluding Tabitha and Maxie, reside in Lilycove or its suburbs, so they all take similar commutes to and from the HQ. To circumvent the possibility of finding herself walking home with either of them, she makes certain to leave the building approximately fifteen to thirty minutes before or after they do. (This is rather tricky to coordinate, as the amount of work they have finished, not the clock, signals when their day is over, unlike for most of the other employees. The two of them are far too dedicated to leave tasks incomplete.) Just in case—Courtney never fails to prepare for every eventuality—she makes sure to take a different route home every day. All in all, logic is, as it always has been, on her side.

Still, her mind betrays her. Despite her efforts, she cannot insulate it from the effects of this tragedy. She tries to hide the injury, like she tries to hide herself, but she cannot deny that she has been wounded. Her only solution is not to probe the laceration further by analyzing it, so she ignores it, blots it from her thoughts and memory, slaps a band-aid on it and hopes that it will heal on its own. But it's tempting, oh so tempting, to peek, to see if the wound really is healing or if it has festered in the moist darkness and gotten worse. The temptation is strongest in the first couple days following the incident, but as she becomes accustomed to her self-sequestration, the desire mellows out into dull curiosity and finally into apathy.

_If they want. . . a machine, then they shall have one. . ._

By day nine of her avoidance, she has fallen into a new habit, and with that familiarity comes complacency. She has come to rely heavily on her plan but has forgotten to consider that fortunes in war change as capriciously as the wind. Once she realizes she has been caught out in a gale, it is far, far too late to flee for cover.

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><p>Once Maxie dismisses them from the first of their biweekly administration conferences, Courtney seeks out the man she has becoming fast acquaintances with over the past nine days.<p>

"I told you I decided to go back to college, yes?" Jethro says as he collects his papers and files them into his backpack. "To get a degree and finally become something more significant than a lab tech?"

"Yes, how is it?" Courtney says, watching Maxie warily out of the corner of her eyes.

"Well, the classes related to my major aren't the problem. It's Calculus." He laughs sheepishly and holds out a notebook to her, looking anywhere but at her face in his nervousness. "Could you maybe explain it to me? Perhaps it would do me some good to hear it from another source."

She nods and glances at the notebook, but most of her attention is focused on the red-headed man who stubbornly refuses to leave the room. "It asks for the amount of oil in the tank at time 12. That is equivalent to the initial number of gallons in the tank, 125, added to the amount poured in over the 12 hours—the integral of the rate of oil being pumped in the tank from time initial to time final. Then, subtract from that sum the integral from time initial to time final of the rate oil is being drained from the tank. . . and the solution is 122.507 gallons."

"I would love right now to tell you how much of an amazing genius you are," Jethro said, "but I need to go submit this homework online before the deadline closes out. Thanks, Courtney!"

He runs out of the room before she has time to follow or even comprehend what exactly has just occurred. It takes her mere seconds to piece together the details of the trap she has just walked into, but that isn't fast enough, and neither is she. Courtney sprints to the door, ignoring her purse and folders still sitting on the table, but Maxie's reaction time is quicker than even her own. She feels her hand on the doorknob, turning it, opening it, nearly there. Everything is dashed when Maxie slams first his hand and then his weight against the door, pushing it shut and locking it. He braces his arms against the door, on either side of her head, keeping her from escaping through both the door behind her and the one on the other side of the conference hall. The lines in his face are sharp in his rage, but his lips are curved in a dangerous smirk.

_Elevated heart rate. . . Increased blood pressure. . . Nausea. What is this? Fear?_

Her mind reels, rapidly calculating all of the ways she can get out of this, simulating the possibilities of how this could end. Even as she faces the dire reality of her situation, she cannot help but commend his strategy. He has to have been observing her, taking note of all her habits, waiting for a mistake to exploit. Obviously, he somehow managed to convince Jethro to distract her while everyone else cleared the room and then to abruptly exit, effectively leaving her alone with the mastermind.

"I believe I told you," he says, slowly, because with her right where he wants her, he has all the time in the world, "that you would not best me so easily a second time. Did you truly expect me to fail to realize that this was a game?"

_My mind. . . my heart. . .are no game_. "Release me, _at once_." She makes a move to duck under his arms, but again he is faster, catching her by the wrists and pinning them to the door.

"The time for civility is past. I will exercise every femtoliter of my power to keep you here until I have probed your mind and forced it to divulge the cause of your strange behavior."

His eyes flash, and the mere thought of having that exquisite, capable mind, in all its rage, turned upon her is enough to set her trembling. Not in fear, but in _exhilaration._

_Excitement. . . This is more ensnaring. . . than could be any game of chess._

"Then. . . you shall find yourself detained for a. . . sizable period of time," she warns.

Her wrists twist experimentally in his grasp, testing how far he will allow her to struggle before himself retaliating. The answer is immediate and unanticipated. He will not allow her to so much as move without tightening his grip on her. _Possessive. . .? That is not a quality. . . I foresaw in him. . ._

"I'll inform my secretary to cancel my meetings." His hawk-like eyes never stray from her face.

"You won't. You are far too dedicated to your work." She thinks she has called his bluff.

His grin only widens. "While it is true that my stamina is inexhaustible once I have committed myself to a task, it behooves you to know that I am entirely resolved on splitting open and devouring the contents of _this_." He raises his hand slightly to tap her temple.

"You shall discover it an endeavor wholly fruitless, for the world thinks it a shell unyielding to all attempts to penetrate it!" She tries to remain neutral for the sake of not giving him any further weaknesses to exploit, but acrid venom born of her wounds creeps into her voice regardless of her efforts.

"I am not the rest of the world."

Before her mind can restrain her, swift as it is, she spits back, "You have not proven it thus as of late."

His grip on her slackens for a moment, and his eyes lose some of their intensity. "Is that what this is about? The words I said all those days ago?"

"You will. . . have to refresh my memory, as I have forgotten," she lies. She has _tried_ to forget, but to no avail.

His voice is softer now, quieter. "The lengths you have gone to avoid me argue otherwise."

"Was I in that, too, as beautifully efficient _as a machine_?" Maxie's attempts to placate her only drive her into greater anger.

"You mistook my meaning."

"I did not," Courtney says. "Now, release me!"

She pushes against him, trying to make him lose his hold on her, but he merely presses her closer against the door with his weight.

"Allow me to appeal to your reason." He pleads with his eyes, and that fact alone is enough to rivet her attention. Maximilian Asche is not one to beg. "Please."

"You have. . .my ear."

The tension in his chest relaxes somewhat as he sighs. _Relief. . .? Why?_

Words fly out of his mouth faster than she has ever heard from him, and forethought seems entirely absent. "I by no means intended to insinuate that you _are_ a machine—cold, unfeeling, a means to an end. In fact, the implications of my statement were exactly the opposite. Your mind. . . it is _beautiful._ You are capable of performing calculations and thought processes as rapidly and accurately as a machine, your logic is as flawless as is its, your mental universe is as expansive as the greatest technology of our time.

"But, for all that, it is still _human._ That, that is why I am fascinated—no, enamored—with _you, _Courtney."

Her face contorts into the vilest of expressions as a mixture of rage, raw hatred, and tears overtakes it. "Fascinated with it because of its _imperfections?_ Yes. . . You are only fascinated by the thought of debugging all the defects of an otherwise perfect human machine!"

"Again you do me the injustice of misjudging me!" His protestation is as emphatic physically as it is verbally. He presses his body onto hers until their foreheads are close enough to touch. "That is to say. . . No, dash it all." There it is again, that same curse in German that she heard the day she was sick and hung up on him. "You are a tactile learner, so perhaps I can convince you by suiting action to word."

Before she can question what, precisely, that means, Dr. Maximilian Asche is doing the one thing she never could have predicted as an outcome of this situation.

He is kissing her.

He tilts his head, and his lips meet hers surprisingly gently. They taste like dark chocolate (approximately 47-52% cacao) and the Rooibos tea she has smelled on him many times.

At first she is unresponsive to his advances, so paralyzed by the tidal wave of her brain's analysis, but, for once, she happily shuts out her reason as she smiles into his lips and reciprocates. His hands release her wrists in favor of sliding lower and taking captive her waist. He pulls her tighter against him as he deepens the kiss. Because Courtney has thought of this, dreamed of this, simulated this moment, she does not fumble in her actions. She weaves one hand through the fire of his hair and splays the other across his back.

_Oh, Heaven, that my mere dreams of were as an attempt to reach you by a step ladder to the sky. . ._

At some point, she shuts her eyes because the secure blackness of her own mind is less overwhelming than that storm of slate grey.

_1.6 seconds until I fall short of breath. . ._

When they end the kiss, the only part of their bodies that disconnects is their lips. Her head rests against his chest, and his arms remain around her waist.

". . . You. . ."

She does not know what she wants to say, or how to say it. Her mind has not yet recovered.

He speaks softly, lightly pulling up her face to meet his eyes. "All this time, you have incorrectly taken my exaltations as debasements. You have misconstrued my fondness for your idiosyncrasies as intolerance of your so-called defects. You have misjudged how significant a place you have carved for yourself both in my head, and in my heart."

"I. . . did not anticipate this. . .sentimentality." She does not smile because, like Maxie, she rarely does, but her mind is alight with the joy of this pile of new, pleasing evidence to analyze.

He smirks. "Yes, well, don't become accustomed to it. I most certainly will not endure this _sappy_ declaration of . . . affection again, even for your sake."

"Once. . . once is sufficient. It gives me. . . quite enough to ponder."

His brows furrow. "I must admit, I'm not entirely certain how to take the fact that you seem to relish analyzing me as if I'm some sort of scientific subject."

"Positively. . . definitely positively." She smiles up at him, even more so as she hears him sigh when she says, "This development. . . warrants further experiments."

"You won't find me a compliant guinea pig," he says in hauteur.

Courtney raises herself on the heels of her boots and presses her face into his neck, smirking into the patch of his skin exposed above his turtleneck. "My mind. . .relishes. . . a challenge."

He stiffens, and she can feel him flush. "Now, now," he chides, "while I am pleased to see you are returning to your usual self, this is hardly the place for that."

"Agreed." She pulls away, smiling ever so slightly into those slate grey eyes. "Once. . . I have internalized this data. . .we should have a conference. . . outside a professional environment."

Maxie levels a knowing gaze at her. "Ms. Kanner, are you implying we go on a date?"

"Affirmative."

Courtney slips out of the door he'd had her pushed against, and he lets her this time. Her mind feels lighter, clearer. _New data to analyze. . . This could lead to a new discovery. . . an epiphany._

_My sickness. . .is it really a sickness at all? No. . . Like my mind, it, too, is me. . . _


End file.
